


Purple Blooms

by dancingsynapses



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingsynapses/pseuds/dancingsynapses
Summary: Rio makes it a habit of seeking Beth out whenever he gets injured. She tends to his injuries, but gets frustrated when she starts to realise he only shows up because he needs her help.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 7
Kudos: 162





	Purple Blooms

The only injuries Beth has tended to are scrapes, knocks, and that split lip when Jane fell off a swing last summer. That, and when Kenny broke his arm climbing the treehouse in their backyard.

But now, she's familiar with the various shades of purples and reds that bloom across knuckles. Knows exactly what creams to use when it's just a superficial bruise and the right kind of pressure to apply to a gash that bleeds for hours. She knows how to steady her hands when all they want to do is shake and she no longer stares, rooted to the ground when he shows up, battered and bloodied. Instead, she knows the shortest route to calming him down enough so she can patch him up, knows how to read the difference between anger and hurt. Knows the difference between the way he hisses in pain and the way he does in annoyance.

The first time he showed up, a purple bruise on his jaw and a cut on his lip so deep it bled down his neck when he grinned at her little yelp of surprise, she'd been frightened, insisted on taking him to the ER, irritated him into biting onto his injured lip in annoyance. She'd done what she usually does when her children get injured, and he didn't stop her. And once she had gone to the bathroom to clean up, he returned to find him fast asleep in her bed. He was gone the next morning.

There had been multiple occasions after that. The time he'd come over without any obvious injuries besides the ones on his knuckles. She'd put some Neosporin over them and then looked at him questioningly, wondering how he was going to quietly slip under her covers if she never left the room. Instead, he slowly unbuttoned his shirt with quiet resignation, kicked off his shoes and lay down on what had become his side of her bed. She'd done the same, turning the lights off before slipping quietly into hers. It was the first time he had pulled her arm over his, forcing her into being his big spoon, letting her breaths on his neck lull both of them into a soothing slumber.

-

She didn't see him for a while after that. Remembering him saying something about having to take a break while one of his boys check out a rival that was trying to expand into Detroit. So it surprised her when two weeks had passed without him showing up and she began to worry. It's the money, she told herself. No Rio meant no funny money, which meant no _real_ money. She wouldn't worry about him, why should she. They were just colleagues.

"Elizabeth..."

The sound of her backdoor opening had her on alert, but his familiar drawl sent relief coursing through her entire body. He was back.

"Oh my god, what happened to you!"

He stood in her doorway, one hand clutching his other arm, blood dripping from his fingers, a lopsided smirk on his face. She thought she could handle this. After all the late nights patching him up, playing doctor, she thought she wouldn't be caught frozen to the ground in shock again. But as she watched the crimson liquid drip from his fingers to her dark wood floors, she couldn't move a muscle.

"What ma, I don't even get a hello?"

His tone was playful, but even while standing, he swayed a little, a light sheen of sweat coating his skin. Breaking her spell, she reached out to steady him, before trying to pry his hand away from the wound, wanting to take a better look at the damage.

He shook his head, before angling his chin to her stairs. Once in her ensuite bathroom, he collapsed against her bathtub. Under the almost sterile lighting of the room, she could see the dark purple under his eyes and the sickly pallor of his skin. Yet even then, she found him devastatingly handsome. Funny, how she only found herself attracted to cookie-cutter types like Dean all her life, yet a tattooed gangbanger comes into her life and steals her breath away.

"So...you gonna just stare? Or you gonna help me out?"

Biting back a retort, she opens her medicine cabinet, fishing out whatever tools she could find, before settling down next to him. Pulling her hair into a haphazard ponytail to keep it out of the way, she puts on her best doctor's face, before gently moving his hand out of the way. He was wearing black again — typical. But even then, she could see his sleeve darkened and matted with blood.

Without the pressure, blood oozed out of a deep horizontal gash on his upper arm. Instinctively, she picked up some gauze and applied pressure to the wound, hoping that with some miracle, he'd stop bleeding on his own.

"Yeah, that ain't gonna work. You gonna have to sew it up."

Her mouth fell open and she could hear herself making some gurgled noise that sounded like she was trying to explain why she couldn't do it, but it wasn't coming out right.

"W..what?! I'm not a doctor or a nurse! You can't just expect me to know how to sew a wound up Rio!"

Annoyed by his impossible task, she applied more pressure to his arm that elicited a hiss from him.

"But you good at that right? All that sewin' and craftin'. Else...you could just hot glue it together."

He waved his good arm around, insinuating that her patching him up would be as easy as waving a magic wand and whispering a secret spell. _Abra cadabra bitches_.

"That's not the same!"

Beth huffed while reaching for his hand to keep applying pressure as she walked out of the room angrily to retrieve her sewing kit. For all the times she'd taken pleasure in piecing together fabric, watching as string held a masterpiece together, she'd never ever imagined having to put Rio back together again with nothing but needle and thread. She was good at crafting, but crafting human? She'd highly doubt that.

Sterilizing the needle with the bottle of rubbing alcohol she kept in her cabinet, she found the situation increasingly ridiculous. Not only was she furious at Rio for coming to her house with injuries that far superseded her healing abilities (not that they were fantastic to begin with), she had to bite her tongue in order to prevent herself from asking him about what happened. Which, she was sure, would set him in a horrendous mood and they'd end up bickering for hours until he bled out on her bathroom floor.

"You're quiet. Don't got any questions?"

"Like you'd answer them even if I asked."

She spitefully replied while peeling the gauze off his skin, the blood once again seeping from his gash and flowing down his arm. Why did she even bother to find black thread? Everything would be red after she was done with this.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to steady her shaking hands, closing her eyes to summon the courage to pierce what already looked like a very painful bullet graze. Warm fingers enveloped hers.

"Relax mami..."

He lifted his pinky to brush a stray strand of hair from her face, like the hundreds of times he'd done before and Beth felt her chest bursting from adrenaline and want. Shaking her head, she stilled her rapidly beating heart before piercing the edge of the bullet graze, earning a sharp hiss from Rio.

She wanted to make it better. Despite the annoyance and the nagging feeling that he was just using her as a convenient nurse, she wished she could snap her fingers and relieve him of his pain, just as she did on the many nights he had sought her out. But this was unlike the scrapes and bruises she had tended to, the blood staining each stitch red. It made her wonder why she'd searched for black thread when any colour would have ended up the same.

As the tied off the last stitch, he held her hand in his own, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Even through the honeyed brown of his skin, she could see that he was paler, his chest rising and falling with each laboured breath.

"You got any bourbon?"

She bit her lip, quelling the questions she had about the hows and whys of his injury. Instead, she soothed him with a hand of her own and answered.

"Yeah, sure. Why don't you lie down while I get some from the kitchen?"

Lifting his good arm over her shoulders, she felt the weight of him against her body as she helped him to her bed. Kicking off his shoes and socks, then with Beth's help, he took off his jeans and shirt before making himself comfortable.

When Elizabeth returned, amber liquid swishing in the cups she held in her hands, his breathing was shallow and even. She could see a coating of sweat on his forehead as she instinctively set the glasses on the nightstand and reached out to feel for his temperature.

Slightly warm. But not too bad. Sighing, she wet a washcloth before returning to place it on his head.

"Hey.."

His eyes opened the moment the cool cloth made contact with his skin. Reaching for her, he pushed himself into a seating position before taking the bourbon and finishing it in a single shot.

"The best kind of painkiller huh..."

Elizabeth bit her lip as she sat down beside him.

"Why do you always come here when you're hurt?"

His eyes studied her. Trying to figure out the various unspoken questions lying behind the ones she did ask. Eventually, he shrugged.

"Thought you'd be good at patching people up."

He answered nonchalantly, an infuriating smirk on his face. Beth felt the anger she'd tried to push away rise above in her chest.

"You can't just show up here beaten and bruised and....shot!! And expect me to take care of you."

She could feel her chest heaving with the exasperation rolling over her in waves. She'd wanted more from him. Stupidly so, when he obviously only came to her when he needed her help, when he _wanted_ something from her. For her to fix him up, then send him back to wherever he came from and whatever he was doing. She'd learn to differentiate the different brawls he'd get into by the intensity of the purple shadows that dusted his knuckles. Could tell the difference between a punch dealt as a warning and the ones that he dealt as punishment. Yet she didn't even know his last name, heck, she didn't even know his _real name._

And honestly? She was tired. Between her four children, and the overgrown one she called her ex-husband, she barely had time to take care of herself and here she was tending to his injuries. Here at his beck and call.

She turned away from him, arms crossed at her chest, trying to hold herself together.

"What'd you think this was, Elizabeth? You _work_ for me. You don't get to pick and choose what you get to do yeah?"

He spit out with malice, the playful smirk on his face now gone. The clench of his jaw, an obvious show of his displeasure.

She let out a heavy sigh, hands dropping to her side in defeat. Tears already beginning to pool in her eyes.

"I'm tired, Rio. I put you back together when I can barely hold myself together. And then when you leave, I worry about when you'll come back again. _If_ you come back. I wonder if the next time you come back, bleeding out on my bathroom floor, with injuries beyond my healing abilities, that I'd have to relay your dying message to your son. I can't...I can't do that.

Sometimes, I wish, for once, you'd seek me out without any bruises or cuts or wounds that need tending to. I wish you'd come not because you need any help, but because you wanted to."

Elizabeth found herself almost panting after her monologue had spiralled out of control. Her eyes wide with the fear she'd been cataloging into the recesses of her mind. Her heartbeat erratic from the anger, disappointment and hope she'd been carrying.

He looked at her, a flash of something in his eyes she couldn't decipher before they returned to their steely gaze. She waited, for him to say something, meeting his gaze with nothing but honesty. She'd shown her hand, and she wasn't sure if he was going to lay his cards on the table. He never did, but still she could hope.

"Got your message loud and clear, Elizabeth."

His voice was cold, devoid of the warmth they usually had when he dropped by on his late night ER visits. He shifted his weight to his good arm, before slowly making his way onto his feet. He swayed and Elizabeth instinctively reached out to steady him, before pulling her hand back midway.

He was going to leave.

And she should have expected this. Every time she pushed him, he'd close himself off. And what could she do besides letting him?

"Rio....can you even drive?"

He snaps his head back at her too quickly, throws her one of those looks he'd used to intimidate her way back when.

"Yeah, that ain't your concern."

And with that, he shuts the bathroom door, leaving her behind, the only evidence of his visit are the empty disinfecting bottles and smeared blood stains.

-

Thing is, Rio isn't someone who gets hung up on people. Besides the family that he's got and can't avoid, because they're related by blood, he generally prides himself in being able to let things go when they've run their course.

Which is why he finds himself particularly annoyed when he stares at the perfect little stitches on his arm and finds himself thinking of her. Fucking _perfect_ little stitches that have been spaced out so equally as if a surgeon had sewn them in as well. And they're black too.

He'd found himself running a finger across them even though he knows it's a bad idea to touch a wound this raw, but he'd been itching to touch her and somehow his fingers had found their way to this mark she'd left on him.

Even through the busy week he's had, she'd found a way to sneak into his thoughts at every conceivable moment. Whenever he lifted his arm and a jolt of pain shot through it, he'd thought of the way her lip had wobbled when she confronted him, the way she'd held her tears back with sheer willpower, the way she'd thrown all her words at him with nothing but honesty and fuck...it had surprised him.

She'd wanted something more from him. The first time she'd outrightly, ok maybe not so outrightly, but the first time she'd insinuated that she'd wanted more. And he'd wanted nothing else than to give it to her. Except he'd been alone for so long, that he didn't know if he could just give in.

"Yo, boss. So what we gonna do about that shipment?"

Bullet's voice dragged him out of his thoughts as he ran a hand across his face in frustration. He'd been distracted again. Fuck, he'd been distracted more times this week than he had been in a single year.

"Just handle it yeah? Take a few more guys with you. I ain't gonna be there tonight."

They'd been having issues with a few shipments lately that had required a little more...gun and knuckle power, but he'd been holding back. Sending Bullet to handle these things even though he'd usually be the first one to break a punch. Hell, he didn't even know why, but he'd been keeping himself out of trouble.

Other than Marcus, he'd never really had the incentive to stay out of trouble. He's usually too smart to get into any kind of serious shit, but he'd sought out some small thrills sometimes. The adrenaline giving him some sort of sick kick.

But her voice and her little speech kept coming back into his mind.

_"Sometimes, I wish, for once, you'd seek me out without any bruises or cuts or wounds that need tending to._

_I wish you'd come not because you need any help, but because you wanted to."_

_-_

Elizabeth was putting away the dishes from dinner when she heard the sound of her back door opening. Sighing, she wiped her hands on the dishtowel, before turning around, half expecting to see a bleeding Rio leaning against her counter.

"So, what is it I gotta fix this time?"

She asked as her eyes scanned him for any obvious injuries as he broke into a wide grin. Shoving his hands into his pockets, she clocked a sheepish look on his face as he shifted his weight from feet to feet, almost as if he was feeling unsure of himself.

Rio shrugged his shoulders, before taking a few steps towards her.

"You said you didn't want me to show up bruised and battered...so..."

She quirked an eyebrow before a smile crept up her face. He'd come, just like she asked. Injury-free, in perfect condition, with nothing to fix. An olive branch, an answer to her request of wanting something _more._

"Wanna check?"

He asked cheekily, before reaching up to unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt slowly, her eyes trained on every inch of exposed skin. Sucking in a deep breath, she takes two steps toward him, closing the distance, her palms making their way to his chest. Nodding tentatively, she looks up at him through her lashes, her voice sickeningly sweet.

"Yes, I think a thorough check is required."

She pulls him towards the bedroom, before taking her time to look through the expanse of his body. Making sure that not a scratch was present.

**Author's Note:**

> Season 3 is coming out today!!!! I'm half crazy excited for more Brio moments, but also half afraid the show will ruin Brio.
> 
> If you have any prompts, do let me know in the comments or I'm on tumblr at dancingsynapses


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